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Wolfgang Josephs (later Peter Johnson), a German Jew from Berlin, came to Great Britain in July 1933. He began work in the fur trade until he was interned as an enemy alien at the outbreak of war and later transported on the 'Dunera' to Hay Internment Camp, Australia. His parents having divorced in 1934, his father went to Amsterdam in 1937, from where he was deported to Auschwitz in 1942. His mother came to Great Britain in 1939 and went into service. On Johnson's return to Great Britain in 1941 he enlisted in the Pioneers Corps, later changing his name to Peter Johnson. He was a military interpreter for the British occupying forces in Germany at Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, from May 1945 to October 1946 where he was involved with the de-nazification process. Whilst there he also took an interest in the returnees from concentration camps, arranging correspondence between them and their families all over the world.